Skip to main content

IRF Geneva steering the working groups of the National ITS Committee in India

Following the establishment of a National Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Committee by NITI Aayog, three working groups (WGs) have been created with the mission to formulate policy recommendations on education, legal aspects and innovation. IRF has entered into a Statement of Intent (SOI) with NITI Aayog, Govt of India, to work towards a coherent national ITS policy and is accordingly now chairing the work of the three WGs. Eight pillars of priority action have now been identified and ongoing pilots
September 28, 2018 Read time: 4 mins
Following the establishment of a National Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Committee by NITI Aayog, three working groups (WGs) have been created with the mission to formulate policy recommendations on education, legal aspects and innovation. 1201 IRF Geneva has entered into a Statement of Intent (SOI) with NITI Aayog, Govt of India, to work towards a coherent national ITS policy and is accordingly now chairing the work of the three WGs. Eight pillars of priority action have now been identified and ongoing pilots in the country are being reviewed.


Each working group is chaired by Shri Balraj Bhanot, advisor to International Road Federation (Geneva & India) and executive director ARAI. The first meeting of the ITS National Committee took place on 23rd March 2018 and the following tasks were assigned to three Working Groups:

WG 1 – ITS Capacity-Building and Awareness

• Sound analysis of the actual situation in the country at all levels and suggest corrective measures
• Provide recommendations for the development of an integrated curriculum for ITS at academic level
• Provide recommendations for the creation of continuous professional training programmes
• Provide recommendations for the development of awareness/education campaigns

WG 2 – ITS Institutional and Regulatory Frameworks
• Develop a roadmap for creating an appropriate institutional set-up and regulatory framework for ITS deployment and uptake in identified areas
• Identify priority areas of regulatory intervention that could help unlock the potential of ITS and deliver quick wins in areas defined

WG 3 – ITS Standards, Security and Innovation
• Identify areas for standardisation, security and draw a roadmap with BIS, DoT (TEC, TSDSI & CDoT) (collaboration with WG2)
• Provide recommendations on how to foster the dialogue and collaboration between the private and the public sector
to boost innovation and R&D in the country

The 3 WGs have already met twice over the past months and eight pillars of priority areas of activities have been identified for an initial focus. A review of pilots in the country is currently being carried out.

Making urban streets safe: new training course

We depend on mobility systems every day. Streets need not be a place where we put our lives and those of our loved ones at risk.

More than 1.25 million people are killed on roads each year, the majority in developing countries, making traffic fatalities a leading cause of death worldwide. Children, elderly and poor people are particularly vulnerable. Are drivers and pedestrians always to blame? Recent research from WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities and the Global Road Safety Facility of the World Bank finds that the most effective way to prevent traffic deaths is a systemic approach that shifts responsibility away from the drivers and pedestrians using roads and places it on the city planners and officials designing them. Analysis conducted in 53 countries found that those that have taken a “Safe System” based approach have achieved both the lowest rates of fatalities/100,000 inhabitants and the greatest reduction in fatality levels over the past 20 years. IRF (Geneva) together with Qatar Transportation & Traffic Safety Centre and Qatar University are pleased to present a new international training course addressing specifically Safe Urban Street Design for Vulnerable Road Users. The course will be held from 4th to 6th December 2018 in Doha – Qatar.

The course provides guidance to all stakeholders involved in transport decisions: from government officials planning transport systems, to community groups concerned about safety, and businesses. The course will provide concrete suggestions on how to develop context-specific and Safe System-based road safety interventions in an urban environment. The international road safety experts delivering the course will analyse and discuss with the participants the reasons why vulnerable road users are involved in impacts that result in fatalities and serious injuries. It will also highlight the preventive and corrective actions - including education, enforcement and engineering measures - that can be put in place to prevent injury and fatalities.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Road safety gain for UK in 2013
    June 26, 2014
    The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) reveals that the road fatality rate for 2013 was the lowest since records began in 1926. The data shows that 1,713 people died on the UK’s road network in 2013, around half that of the figure recorded for the year 2000. This reveals an on-going improvement in road safety levels. The DfT statistics show that in 2013, 21,657 people were seriously injured in road crashes, while the total number of casualties of all severities stood at 183,670. Car occupant fatalities in
  • Improving road safety around the world
    November 18, 2020
    New agreements will help improve road safety around the world.
  • UN highlights safety pandemic on roads
    November 23, 2015
    Jean Todt, special envoy of UN secretary general on the challenge of road safety Jean Todt, president of, Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and special envoy of the UN secretary general on road safety spoke about the next steps in tackling the plague of road accidents. “Every year, on the world's roads, almost 1.3 million people die. According to the WHO (World Health Organization), road traffic crashes are now the eighth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death am
  • FEHRL holds successful infrastructure research event in Brussels
    June 22, 2015
    FEHRL recently held the FIRM15 event in Brussels, focussing on innovative maintenance of transport infrastructure In all some 110 transport infrastructure research experts from Europe and beyond met for the 2015 FEHRL Infrastructure Research Meeting (FIRM15) at the Diamant Centre in Brussels, Belgium. These professionals discussed the overall theme of 'Innovative maintenance of transport infrastructure: Faster, cheaper, more reliable, safer and greener'. Throughout the two-day conference, several solution